Secrets, Sorrow, and Satine
by Jessifer1
Summary: Christian finds out the truths to all the times he has been lied to.
1. And So It Begins

Just to let you know, Moulin Rouge does not belong to me. If it did, I'd be writing a sequel instead of a fanfic.  
  
The location of this story, as well as the characters Christian and Satine, were NOT invented by yours truly.  
  
Christian sat by himself at the bar of The Harlequin, quietly sipping a martini. He felt more alone than ever, thinking of Satine and how he missed her gleaming, pale skin, her flawless copper hair, her sophisticated voice. His ears still sometimes played his memories of her telling him she loved him, always with an "oh" at the beginning, because that was simply how she spoke. "Oh, Christian, I love you." She could never get enough of saying his name while she was still alive, and would work it into conversation as much as possible. It was eerily parallel to his life now: when he was talking with someone, he would often sigh just to get them to ask him if he was alright, and then he would tell them exactly how much he missed her. Satine. She was the reason he lived, and yet she herself had died. It didn't seem possible.  
  
There was a woman sitting in a booth over in the corner, reading a book and gently caressing the handle of her teacup. She had blonde hair that was pulled back in a prim bun, and black glasses with slender rims. She definitely did not belong, and had a way of standing out from everyone else, for her tranquility was so nicely contrasting against the loud laughter and clinking beer glasses coming from other tables. Christian didn't much want to admit it, even to himself, but something about the way she moved when she turned the page reminded him deeply of Satine. Perhaps it was just that she was a woman who interested him, a quality she shared with Satine, that reminded her of his one and only true love. Nonetheless, he took his martini and went to sit by her in her booth.  
  
"My name is Christian, and I hope you don't mind if I sit by you. It's terribly lonely at the bar," he explained softly. She looked up from her book, then carefully placed a bookmark inside it and closed it silently.  
  
"I'm called Ariana," she replied, and removed her glasses, revealing a face so beautiful that he nearly lost his breath. "What is wrong, sir? You look like you've caught sight of a ghost!"  
  
Christian loosened his collar. "It's nothing. It's just that you remind me of someone... someone I loved." He cleared his throat, trying to decide whether he ought to tell her about Satine, and then realized that since he'd probably never see her again after tonight, there was no harm in it. "Someone I loved who lost her life eight months and five days ago."  
  
Ariana looked genuinely fascinated. "There was someone I loved who died eight months and five days ago," she said, astonished. "She was my sister. She danced and sang at the Moulin Rouge, their Sparkling Diamond, she was. I came here to find her, since we were separated by our mother at birth."  
  
Christian's jaw dropped. "She was called Satine," he told her, tripping over his own words. "Satine, my true love."  
  
"Satine, my sister whom I met but once."  
  
He took her hands in his and slowly, so slowly, laid his head to rest upon them. She had the pale, pale skin of Satine that he had always marveled at. He'd often wondered how she stopped from getting tan in the slightest.  
  
"This isn't fair," he whispered, feeling tears building up in his eyes. "It's like I'm in my old life, sitting at The Harlequin with Satine, young and in love... It feels like you are the one I've been searching for, but you can't ever return the feeling, for you've never met me..."  
  
From behind the counter, a woman of about twenty-five glanced over at the table of Ariana and Christian as she rubbed the fingerprints from a beer mug. She wore a vest and a clean white oxford shirt tucked into black button-up pants, making her seem like an everyday man. Her autumn-colored hair was tucked under a simple black beret that concealed her eyes, and her white skin had been tinted beige with a panstick. She watched Christian and Ariana through the distantly-sewn threads of her cap, knowing they couldn't see her, couldn't possibly know who she was, couldn't ever find out that she was the one bringing them together tonight, the one they both had loved. And so distantly in her soul, she felt a tug that showed her exactly how much she wished she could be sitting there between them, telling them the whole story. But she couldn't, and so she kept polishing the glass in her hands. 


	2. The Chase

That night, Satine packed up her things at The Harlequin after waiting a full three minutes since Christian and Ariana had left together. She put on her coat, which had belonged to her father (she'd wear anything to make herself seem like the man she was disguising as), and departed from the bar, head down. She began to cross the cobblestone road, when suddenly, a car's headlights shone on her as the vehicle came rushing down the street. It was inches away now, and she was frozen in utter fear.  
  
And then... it stopped. The lights still gleamed brightly in her face, and once she had shielded her eyes enough to be able to look into the front window of the car, she realized the mistake she had made. Sitting in the driver's seat of the old Ford was Christian, and beside him, on the passenger's side, was Ariana, both of them wearing absolutely shocked expressions. "Satine?" Christian hollered. "Satine!" He jumped out of the car without opening the door, while Ariana stayed put, mouth wide open. He ran after his love, chased her down the streets of Paris until his breath was ragged, but the pain in his chest now was no match for the months and months of pain he had experienced after her death. What if she was still alive? What if he had finally found his love?  
  
He followed her until, at last, she reached a dead-end alley, and had to turn around. He ran to her and ripped off her black cap, letting her red hair spill down onto her shoulders, and she wailed in frustration.  
  
"Satine... Satine... Satine..." He couldn't help repeating her name, and he didn't know what part of her to touch, to kiss. He didn't know what to tell her. Most of all, what he didn't know was everything there was to know. He had so many questions, but she didn't seem willing to answer them.  
  
"Christian! I've got to go! They're coming to -"  
  
"No. You can't leave. I've found you, my darling!"  
  
"I can't be your darling anymore! I have a life now! I have work!"  
  
"Will you answer my question, then? One and only one question?"  
  
"I would love to answer so many more," she breathed, mirroring his passion for the first time since their reunion, but it was quickly gone. "I can't, though. One, Christian, and then I've got to go, or they'll find me here with you!"  
  
Christian kissed her cheek, taking in her smell, that wonderful feminine aroma she projected that was the sole reason he had kept her clothes in his closet all this time. "My question is... do you love me still?"  
  
Satine had been expecting something more demanding than this, perhaps "Why did you leave?" or "Who will find you here with me?" This was something much simpler to answer. "Christian... I love you now, just as I have and will always love you. You are the one person who I wish I could be with, and yet, you are the one person whom I must avoid like the plague, or I will be killed."  
  
Christian laughed gleefully. "You were already killed once, by your own disease, and yet here you are again. Couldn't it be that if they murdered you, whoever they are, you could just come back again, like you have just done?"  
  
Satine's eyes became hollow and sad. "I've never died, Christian. It was all an act. Oh, I wish I could explain, but I can't!"  
  
Christian sat down on an old cardboard box full of ancient newspapers that had been shoved into the corner of the alleyway. "If you must go now, Satine, I want you to know that whenever you can, you should be at my home with me. I'm so afraid of living without you. So dreadfully afraid. Don't break my heart again. If they come to kill you, I will protect you. That is my word as a gentleman."  
  
Satine opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, she fainted on the spot, and Christian leapt to his feet just in time to catch her in his arms. He propped her up against him so that it looked as if she were standing, and began to walk with her, his head half-tipped against her shoulder to inhale her fragrance. 


	3. Remniscing

When they got to Christian's apartment, the same old suite in the Hotel Meublé that had once been cheery but now was dreary (from one of Christian's poems), he laid Satine down on the small bed and went to the kitchen to make her a cup of tea. When he returned with a mug for her, she was awake, but seemed quite lifeless. Her eyelids fluttered in that beautiful way he remembered so well from the days they'd spent there in the hotel.  
  
"This place holds so many memories," Satine mused as she took the cup from him and blew across it to cool it down. Her fiery red hair was fanned out around her face, and she looked more beautiful than Christian had ever known her to. "Do you still remember our song?" Her crimson lips turned up into a smile. "Our secret song."  
  
Christian nodded and brushed a hand across her porcelain face. "I sing it to myself every day, every time I'm not entirely sure you're still out there. Even after I accepted your death, I believed you were in the world somewhere, in another person's body, and that someday, I would find you."  
  
"You're lucky," Satine told him playfully. "You found me, and I'm still in the same body. Or maybe you were expecting me to reside within a pretty girl from one of those leg shows?"  
  
Christian curled a strand of her hair around his finger. "I don't think it would be possible for you to have landed in a prettier body than this. And I'm sure no girl from a leg show would ever care about anything besides looks."  
  
Just then, there was a loud knock at the door. Christian stood up to get it, but Satine gasped, "No! It's them! They've come to take me from you! Don't open the door!" Christian sat back down on the bed, and both of them watched the door as the person on the other side continued to knock. Finally, a note was slipped underneath, and footsteps sounded, getting quieter as the person left the hotel. Christian bent down and picked up the letter, opened it, and read it aloud.  
  
"Dearest Satine and company. We await your return, and hope that you are not going against our orders. Come back; we miss you dearly. From the people who are your home." He glanced at Satine, who had covered her eyes with one hand. "What does this mean? Who are these people?"  
  
Satine sighed and sat up so that her face was mere inches from that of her love. "The truth is, that letter is from the people who forced me to pretend to die. The people who wanted me to marry the duke and live happily ever after. But don't you see, Christian? I have to go be with them, or they will kill you and take me. I will suffer in agony for the rest of my life, missing you, and you will never see me again. It will be painful for the two of us. That is why I cannot stay."  
  
Christian leaned under the bed and pulled out a couple of suitcases. He went to his closet and removed all of Satine's old clothes, the ones he had kept. "Your best dresses, from our old life together," he explained softly, and packed them all into one of the suitcases. Into the other one, he carefully folded as many of his own clothes as he could fit. "We can still leave Paris, Satine. When I returned our tickets to England after I thought you had died, I explained my story, and the airport granted me two free tickets to England for whenever I pleased." He reached out a hand for Satine to take in her own. "Come with me. We will never have to worry again. I have lived in your home; now it is time for you to come to mine." 


	4. The Departure

While Satine laboriously lifted herself off the bed and onto the ground, and Christian bustled around the kitchen packing away all the small, carriable appliances (like the coffee maker), there was another knock at the door. It wasn't as urgent as before, but still, they had to be careful. "Who is it?" Christian called.  
  
"Ariana," a voice cooed back. Satine's face lit up and she opened the door immediately, letting in her sister. The two of them exchanged a hug and sat down on the bed, next to the suitcases.  
  
"My sister," Ariana croaked. A tear made its slow path down her left cheek. "My sister is alive."  
  
Satine laughed. "Why've you come, Ariana? How did you know where to find us?"  
  
Ariana smiled then. "I saw Christian walking with you after you fainted, so I got in the driver's seat of his car and followed you in it. I figured I'd leave you a few minutes to get reacquainted; that's why I'm late. I've come to say hello, of course!"  
  
Christian leaned back so they could just see his head through the kitchen doorway. "We're leaving for England today, Ariana. We'll have to bid you goodbye here, or maybe at the airport, if you'd like to come."  
  
Ariana's face fell. "I won't accompany you there; I'll just say my farewells before I leave. But there is something else I've got to tell the both of you."  
  
Satine picked up her teacup from before and emptied the last drops into her mouth. "Yes, and what's that?"  
  
"It is," Ariana said, voice cracking slightly, "that I have a son I've got to get home to."  
  
Satine grinned more widely than could be expected of anyone. "I am an aunt! I do wish our mother had kept us together when we were born; I'd be able to appreciate him earlier! How old is he, and what's the little chap's name?"  
  
"He is seven years old. His name is Pierre."  
  
"Seven years old!" Christian exclaimed. "You must have had him when you weren't much more than a girl!"  
  
Ariana looked solemn and lowered her eyes. "I was eighteen then. His father is the man who taught me to play piano for five years. We were sitting at the bench, and he told me I had a lovely face... and then..." Satine wrapped her arms around her sister, shushing Ariana like a mother would do.  
  
Christian glanced at his watch. "Eureka Mae!" he cried, and Satine giggled at his phrase of surprise. "It's already three. We'll have to hurry if we expect to make the three-thirty plane to England!" He grabbed up the suitcases in one hand, and then, jokingly, Satine in the other. "Ariana, we will look you up as soon as we get there, and write you two letters a month, if you'll write us back. And we expect to have full updates on Pierre's status in every exchange!"  
  
Ariana laughed and sobbed at the same time, taking Christian and Satine into a group hug. "I'll miss you both terribly," she told them, and then they were off, just making it onto the plane in time.  
  
"We're going to England," Satine sighed, stroking Christian's hand when they were buckled into their seats and starting to take off.  
  
Christian gripped her pale hand firmly but softly. "We're going to a safe place. Home." 


End file.
